The "silent minority" drinks chai, yaar

The Guru magazine, a weekend supplement to the Bangkok Post, has a brand new column specifically aimed at Thai-Indians written by a Thai-Indian. The column is (unoriginally) called Coffee with Sonia with this week’s title being “The Silent Minority”. The page is covered in images of the Taj Mahal, mehndi, Bollywood posters, women in sarees, glass bangles and (my personal favourite) a plate of paneer tikka. Oh, to be exotified, thus!

The article itself touches on some interesting points, asking why Thai-Indians cannot be related to by Thai people in the same way that the Thai-Chinese community can. I think it is brilliant that Indians in this city are beginning to explore their place in Thai society in a public medium. Of course, my enthusiasm promptly deflated when I read this: “how good would it be if more information could be provided about Bollywood, yoga, clothes, food, culture and Indian parties?” So really, that’s what the column is about. It is the Guru magazine after all, not the Annals of Cultural Discourse. Good effort though, I’m pleased nonetheless.

I do wish to point out, however, what the use of the term “Thai-Indian” implies. The Indians that are represented in this article, the ones that have been here for 3-4 generations who began their livelihoods through tailor shops and garment factories, are specifically the Sikh community. The migration patterns are different depending on which Indian community you belong to, not all Indians have adopted a Thai nationality and so live here as expatriates or permanent residents (like yours truly). Gujaratis came to Thailand in the late 70s and early 80s, they were mainly involved in the gemstone business and were here due to excavation of ruby mines in Chanthaburi. This is a similar case of Marwadis too. Men from Uttar Pradesh came to Thailand without their families to work as gurkhas and have been here as long as the Sikh community has, but they lack the prominence. There is a huge South Indian Muslim population here too, who have come in fairly recent years. The Sindhis have their own pattern which spreads across SE Asia, many jumped from India to Indonesia to Thailand and now are moving in large numbers to China. I personally find the histories behind these migration patterns quite fascinating.

Sadly, there is such limited record of Indians in Southeast Asia. There have been Indians in Vietnam and Cambodia for generations. There have been Indians in small mining towns in Burma, where my family have some roots. Yet, there is nothing documented in any historical record. The legacy of this small, Indian community remains only in the form of Vishnu temples built with their donations and the memories of the local elderly.

I wonder, really, why our stories are not as well documented through literature and art the way it is in Africa and the Caribbean. Perhaps Coffee with Sonia will be used for progeny, when discussing immigrant discourse in the SE Asia sub-region. Indian parties, Bollywood and yoga: really, that’s all we Indians in Bangkok do in our free time..!